marc.vic.max.elliot

Damn it’s hot!  It was 30/86 at 09:00 this morning……….

Well, I got my films from Brighton back and they’re not toooo bad………. I’m even going to get a couple of prints done! :vbg:  This is the first time I’ve got prints done in about 20 films so I’m pretty happy.

The really stupid thing is I thought that the film I bought for the trip (Fuji Provia) was a negative film but it wasn’t it, was a transparency film!  Transparency film is much more sensitive to exposure errors and if you are more than about ? a stop out you’re pretty much screwed (negative film you can sometimes get away with 2 stops either way) The whole point of not shooting my normal outdoors film, Fuji Velvia was that I wanted the latitude that a negative film would give me.  Thinking that I was shooting neg film I was a little less exact in my metering and unfortunately paid the price as few of my shots are a tad underexposed 🙁

Oh well……….

Well, another weekend and yet again no entry until Monday!  This weekend was so busy!

On Saturday I travelled to Brighton, on the south coast, to spend a day with the people from my camera club taking photos.  The day was forecast to be overcast in the morning but quite warm which it did indeed turned out to be and the cloud cleared later to turn into a great afternoon.  I met my friends Nic and Adele (the ones I did the wedding photos for) at London Bridge at 08:30 and off we went…….

For this trip I really wanted to slow myself down so all I took was my Bronica ETRSi with three lenses (I rented a 150mm for the weekend), two film backs, filters, light meter and tripod. This camera does nothing for you – for every shot you have to use a handheld meter and make sure that the aperture and shutter speed are set correctly.  I screwed up a few shots by metering but then forgetting to change the shutter speed, d’oh! 

I was in Brighton from 10:00 until 19:30 and took 30 photos! (two rolls of 120 film) Yep, 9? hours and 30 frames of film exposed!  All you users of digicams out there (me included) will understand what a miniscule number of shots this is   I’m taking the film in today to be developed and might get a couple of shots I like.

I got home just before 22:00 sunburned (ouch!) and absolutely knackered.  A nice shower, into bed and then up just in time to go to Colin and Gill’s (Vic’s Uncle and Aunt) for a BBQ in Colchester.  The temp was about 30?C/86?F with a gentle breeze to take the edge off.  It was nice to see everyone but before long we were in the car for the trip home.  Got home, went to bed and all of a sudden it’s Monday morning.

My weekend – so busy and it disappeared so quickly! 🙁

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We had our first meeting with the local midwifery team yesterday.  Not really much to report – we went through individual and family medical histories, took some of Vic’s blood for a battery of tests and received our pregnancy book thing.  This book will hold everything to do with the pregnancy from the first scan right through to tests and details on the the first few days of our baby’s life.  It’s a very substantial document with lots of good reading in it.

According to the experts Vic is now 14 weeks and 2 days pregnant and just starting to show (but only if you look hard!) Still early days…………..

PS: Fourth run today and another 59 seconds off 18:16 – 17:43 – 17:03 – 16:04   The strange thing is I’m pretty sure that I’m not any fitter, it’s just that I think my body is remembering how to run again!  I think it’s running smoother and more efficiently and therefore faster for same amount of energy.

It’s this photo again!

Amateur Photographer magazine runs a year long Photographer of the Year competition with various “themes” for each monthly round.  From the thousands of entries received each month from all around the world (35mm, Medium Format, Digital and Large Format) they choose a winner and 29 other point scoring entries.  Last month the theme was architecture so I thought I might as well print off a copy and send it in – nothing to lose right?

This was the first time I had entered and I had my picture published in the magazine! 

I must admit that as this is the highest selling weekly photography magazine in the world this means quite a lot to me!  Sure, I didn’t win anything and I have been in What Digital Camera magazine twice (and won a printer) but this is the first actual published competition I have entered and to get what is in effect an “honourable mention” makes me a very happy chappy :vbg: 

Hi all, hope your weekend is going/has gone well

My third run today and another 40 seconds off!  18:16 – 17:43 – 17:03 :vbg:   Once it’s down to less that 15 minutes I’ll start increasing the distance.

Isn’t it funny how those endorphines work.  I’ve been for three runs which is far too short a time to have any effect on my body and yet I feel so much better about myself from a physical perspective.  Is it because of the exercise induced natural high or is it because I’m actually doing something to “improve” myself?  Probably a mixture of the two……..

PS: If you do a search for “truck marc photography” on google my blog is first on the list! Bizarre :zoink:

Just a quick note to say that I have become a contributing writer to a collaborative website dedicated to digital photo editing called The Photo Shop

If you have a digital camera and an editing program go and check it out

We have only just started but hope to have many handy hints and tips up soon.

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Went for my second run this morning.  Did the same course but in 17:43 – 33 seconds faster.

ooouuuuuccccchhhhhhh

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The RMT went on strike today and brought the entire Undergound network to a halt.  Vic’s trip to work usually take 45 mins.  I just called her and she is a third of the way home after one and a half hours!

I don’t want my newly pregnant wife to be stressed out, over heated and standing up all bloody afternoon.  Bastard union f*ckers! – Not happy!

Here’s some tube facts……

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